1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information recording/reproducing system provided with a mass recording or storage device such as, for example, a hard disc drive or the like, and in particular to a recording apparatus, a data managing apparatus and a data managing method for managing recorded data.
2. Description of the Related Art
As well known, in recent years, according to advance of a digital data processing technique, mass storage orientation of a hard disc, cost-reduction thereof, or the like, a video recorder with an built-in HDD (hard Disc Drive) has been developed.
This video recorder with a built-in HDD can be structured so as to receive television broadcasting waves (signals) and convert the television signals into MPEG (Moving Picture Image Coding Experts Group) 2 format to record the same to a hard disc.
According to the video recorder with a built-in HDD, a list of respective programs stored in the hard disc is displayed as a menu screen so that a user can select a program desired freely to look and listen the program or erase it.
Also, in the video recorder with a built-in HDD, such a time shift function can be achieved that, while recording a television program on the air in real time, a user looks and listens the content of the program in a manner where several minutes are delayed.
Now, in the video recorder with a built-in HDD, it is much difficult to exchange hard discs, which is different from a case of exchanging tape cassettes in VTR (Video Tape Recorder), in view of both physical and economical aspects.
For this reason, when the residual quantity for recording in the hard disc built in the video recorder is made less, it is necessary to erase the data of the program which has been recorded in the hard disc in order to record data of a new program.
However, in a case that one video recorder with a built-in HDD is shared by members of a family, even when the list of respective programs which have been recorded on the hard disc is displayed on a screen, it is difficult to make determination about the correspondence relationship between each member of the family and each program which has been recorded, or whether or not the program which has been recorded may be erased, which results in inconvenience in use.
Incidentally, in a system for recording/reproducing information, as a know technique regarding data management carried out when one recording medium is shared by a plurality of users, there is one disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2001-8148 publication.
In the data managing means described in this publication, such a configuration is employed that respective contents which have been recorded on a recording medium are set or attached with passwords so that a management such as an erase restriction or the like is performed.
In such data managing means, however, a password must be set for each program data recording. Therefore, when it is assumed that one video recorder is used in, for example, only one family, there occurs a drawback such as the management is too severe to become inconvenient in handling the video recorder.